He was seventeen and they were extremely good to him.
Nobody in that group was a fraud and nobody was manipulative, and Manaia would defend every one of them to this day. He came in at seventeen out of a bad year and they took him seriously and fed him and taught him.
And what they taught him was the how.
How to read it in the mornings, and in what order, and what to write in the margin. How to pray in a group and how to pray alone, with the shape of it, the four parts. How to give and when. How to talk to somebody who is going through it. How to hold a hard question so it does not knock you over.
All of it good. All of it still working, eighteen years later, and he is grateful in a way that would take him an hour to explain properly.
At no point did anybody ask him whether he had met the Person.
That is not an accusation. He is fairly sure they assumed it, because he came in on a bad year and there had been an evening and he had cried, and everybody in the room reasonably concluded that whatever needed to happen had happened.
Maybe it had. That is the thing he cannot get to the bottom of.
Because he can produce all of it. Ask Manaia anything and there is a good answer, and the answers are not memorized, they are worked. He has thought about this material for eighteen years and it is genuinely his.
And in April his own son, who is nine, asked him at the beach what God is like.
And Manaia gave him the how. He heard himself do it. He gave a nine year old the practice, in child sized pieces, kindly, and the boy was satisfied and went off to the water.
And Manaia sat on the sand for a long time, because the boy had asked what He is like, and that is a question about a Person, and Manaia had answered a different question entirely because it is the only question he has ever been handed.
He is thirty-five and he does not know if he has met Him or only been taught about Him extremely well.
And you may know that beach. You may have been formed properly by good people, and nobody may ever have asked you the other question, and you may not have noticed until a child asked it in your own words back to you.
The man with the best training in the New Testament says he is still after the Person
Take this off before we go a step further, because you have carried it since April and it was never yours.
You are not counterfeit for having been taught first. You never were. Scripture puts the practice and the Person in the same life and never once treats good formation as an obstacle, and it is the Holy Spirit, not the order you were taught things in, who introduces anybody to Christ. Set that down here on the sand. It is heavy and it has been with you since the beach.
Now hear the sentence, and hear who is saying it.
I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings.Philippians 3:10
That is written by a man with the best training in the entire New Testament.
He had the schooling, the pedigree, the discipline, the how, at a level nobody else in those letters comes close to. He lists it a few verses earlier, and it is a serious list.
And here he is, years into it, saying I want to know Christ.
Not I knew Christ once and I remember it well. Present tense. Still going after the Person, with all the practice already in his hands.
Which means the question you asked on that sand is not a symptom of something missing. It is the sentence of a man who has been formed and is now going after the thing the forming was for, and Scripture puts it in the mouth of the most trained person in the book.
You are able to want that. Right now, at thirty-five, with eighteen years of good practice in your hands. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who does the introducing, and He has never once been prevented by somebody having been taught properly first.
Now let me be careful, because there is a ditch here and I am not putting you in it.
Nothing here says those people did you wrong. They took a seventeen year old out of a bad year and gave him something that still works eighteen years later, and Scripture has nothing but honor for that, and you should keep every one of the practices they handed you.
And nothing here says the how is second rate. The four part prayer and the margin notes are not scaffolding to be kicked away. Paul kept his training. He just stopped mistaking it for the destination.
The point is only that nobody asked you the other question, and so you have never asked it out loud yourself. Scripture asks it in the first person, and His Spirit is the one who answers it.
Here is the tender part, and Scripture is gentle with it. You are afraid of the answer, and His Spirit already knows it.
Not afraid that God is not there. Afraid that if you go looking for the Person and find only the practice, you will have to conclude something about eighteen years that you are not able to conclude on a beach in front of your son.
You are not in that danger. His word puts I want to know Christ in the mouth of a fully trained man, and His Spirit is the one who answers that, and neither of them has ever handed anybody a verdict for asking.
So here is the turn, and it is small, and it is nothing you have been taught. His word asks for the Person and His Spirit does the introducing.
Say one thing you believe out loud, in your own words, using none of the phrases you were given.
That is the whole of it. One sentence. On the sand, in the truck, in the yard, with nobody there.
And the rule is the exercise: nothing from the how. Nothing you would say to a young man in that group. Nothing with a shape to it. If it arrives sounding like something you were taught to say, put it down and go looking for what is underneath, because His word is not stored in the form and His Spirit is not waiting on it.
It will come out badly. You have been fluent for eighteen years and this will sound like a beginner, and that is exactly right.
You are able to say one today. Not one day when you are certain about the seventeen year old. His word has the most trained man in the book saying he wants to know Christ, present tense, and His Spirit is the one who does the introducing, and neither of them ever asked you to settle the past first.
I am not going to tell you what will come of it or how quickly. That belongs to God and He works in His own way and in His own timing, and I will not put a promise in His mouth so a page can end well. What I can tell you is what is already yours, and what is already yours is the same wanting that Paul had with all his training in his hands.
Say the bad sentence. Then go and teach your son the knots.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing on the sand, out loud, in a beginner's voice. Nothing here is a task and nothing here has to be earned; it is already yours in Christ, and it was yours through all eighteen years of the practice. Scripture is what these lines stand on, His Spirit is the one who makes them live, and the outcome is His, answered in His own way and in His own timing.
- Question my son asked me at the water, you are about a Person and I answered you with a practice. In the name of Jesus I answer you properly today, because I have the thing itself and not only the accent.
- Fear of what I would have to conclude about eighteen years, you have kept me from asking the only question worth asking. Scripture has the best trained man in the whole book saying he wants to know Christ, in the present tense, with all of it already in his hands.
- Lord, they taught me the how and they were good to me, and Your Spirit is the one who does the introducing. What I believe is mine underneath the practice, and I am saying one beginner's sentence of it out loud today.
Philippians 3:10
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
